I Stab at Thee!
by SweeneyGirl310593
Summary: Khan Noonian Singh's hatred for James Tiberius Kirk is legendary. But why does he hate the Captain so? Why is there bitterness in his heart? One shot. Let me know what you think.


I Stab at Thee!

AN: when I read the miniseries of comics from the continued stories in the new timeline about nuKhan's origins and reasons for his character and actions, I was inspired to write this one shot about when Original Khan started to develop his hate and revenge lust for Kirk and the misfortunes that plagued the Augment colony. This is probably the angstiesst I have got so it will be quite heavy on the emotion. Trigger warnings for death of a loved one.

* * *

"_From Hell's heart I stab at thee. For Hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee." - Moby Dick._

* * *

"Khan, Sir? Your wife...she is asking for you."

"Does she suffer?"

"I am afraid so, Sir" Joachim looked at the somber figure of his commander Khan Noonian Singh, perched like a watchful hawk at the window of his room. The house was a modest simple construction like the rest of thier colony. A colony that now lay heavily damaged "sir?" He asked after a few moments of silence. Khan drew himself up to his considerable full height and strode past Joachim purposefully, with the gravitas he applied to most aspects of his life. "Thank you, Joachim. I will go to her. My Marla."

Joachim was barely twenty five yet the weariness in the sigh he breathed before following his leader out of the room was that of a man twice his age.

* * *

As Khan crossed the space between his own house and the medical facility his people had constructed which was getting rather more use than the Augments, whose DNA was laced with durability, could ever have expected. He looked with a certain amount of bitterness up at the starlight as he walked across the arid ground. How had thier new Eden come to this? When they had first arrived at Ceti Alpha Five they considered it a mercy. Rather than being carted off to a penal colony in a future in which they had no place, they had been marooned on paradise! With lush exotic fauna and flora, it had been the perfect place to establish a community. For five years they had lived like this, some of thier number marrying and having children, establishing an infrastructure. Khan himself had wed his beautiful Marla, formerly a historian of the Enterprise who had decided to become a teacher to the first generation. At thier wedding meal he had joked that he had James Kirk to thank for this. How bitter was the altered view hindsight gave. It was almost like an old fable. Nearly five years to the day they were left here, the disasters happened. Like Biblical plague, the celestial calamity above them, the destruction of the nearby planet had brought a meteor shower which killed much of the animals they used for meat followed by an extended period of drought. They had reserves of course and the technology for extracting water from the air but it still had necessitated rationing. It was quickly becoming apparent that the ecosystem of the planet was in perminant decline. Then the pulmonary bacterium reared it's ugly head. The children were the first to be infected and to begin to perish. The adults had quickly followed. The first of these was his darling Marla, owing to her weaker, unaltered genetics and the child she carried. They had fashioned makeshift communications technology and had sent a plea for assistance. Where was Starfleet in all this?

He crossed the threshold and wordlessly approached the room Marla had been assigned. Khan couldn't quite supress a wince as he heard a deep, painful cough from his wife. He rushed to her side. "Leave us please." He told the two nurses in attendance. With exchainged glances and nods they shuffled quietly from the room.

"Noonian?" Rasped the woman weakly.

"I am here my love."

"Thank you. I just wanted...you near me. It hurts so much!" Another horrific cough was wrenched from her beleaguered body. Khan, heedless of the risk, gathered his sick wife against him and felt how thin she was, the energy and vitality that had been such a hallmark of her faded from her bones, her usually soft features sharpened by pain. Her dark eyes still retained her glimmer, though. Hope. A thing desperately needed among thier community.

"I know my dear. If I could take it away, take it into myself in your place by force of will, I would do so."

"I believe you could" she responded with a ghostly smile.

"You must fight, dear one! For yourself and our child" he gripped her tightly, as though he could hold her soul inside her fragile body "you are strong and brave."

"Not as much as you. If I should die..."

"No!"

"Please listen! If I should die, look after them. Fight for them as hard as you would for me. They will need a leader such as you. Please be as strong as I know you are. Find a way out of this."

"We are trying, my love. Our medical minds are working all hours. There will be a cure! There always is!" He gripped her hand.

"My Khan..." She breathed, wincing.

"Hush now, Marla. Conserve your strength."

"I love you, Noonian. Love having you in my life."

"Shhhh my love..."

For hours, they held each other, the regular rythem of his breath a contrast to her uneven respirations, warm against his cheek. With a cold thrill of horror, Khan's enhanced senses told him her breaths had ceased. He laid her down, two fingers desperately searching her neck for a pulse. He found none. And for the first time in his life he screamed, bellowed, cried for help. He was rushed from the room and to the end of the corridor where he waited, gnawed by almost physically painful anxiety, staring at the door.

* * *

Twenty minutes that stretched into infinity later, A medic emerged from the door "well?!" Demanded Khan.

"Your wife she...is dead sir."

"And the child?"

"Despite our best efforts, we were unable to save either mother or baby."

Khan's mouth twitched dangerously, the tearing of new grief awakening his legendary temper "your best efforts?" He whispered then roard "YOUR BEST EFFORTS? Your best efforts would have saved her! And now she...gone...my dear Marla. Taken..." He barged past the physician to run to his wife, now cold and still. He gathered the body in his arms and expelled a blood curdling scream of grief and rage against her shoulder, his body shaking with the force of his emotion as he sobbed. He laid down the pale, beautiful woman who had been stolen from him and glared. Not at her, not even at the medics who had failed her but at a man far across the stars. A man who had abandoned them to this torment. A certainty solidified in his mind. He hated James Tiberius Kirk and everything he stood for and desired him to feel the same suffering as he was experiencing now. He would keep his promise to Marla. He would look after the people he had been born to and that she had adopted as her own kin. He would lead them to revenge. To new prosperity. Would teach them to hate the man responsible and all associated with him. With each death or misfortune to his beloved people, his conviction would grow. He would find a way across the stars as she would have believed he could. He whispered tenderly into the delicate deaf ear:

"I will avenge thee!"


End file.
